VII
Then that almost voiceless child found words. Heathcote’s announcement of lunch was waved aside, the long afternoon waned, and still that thin trickle of sound flowed on.
The Wonder spoke in odd, pedantic phrases; he used the technicalities of every science; he constructed his sentences in unusual ways, and often he paused for a word and gave up the search, admitting that his meaning could not be expressed through the medium of any language known to him.
Occasionally Challis would interrupt him fiercely, would even rise from his chair and pace the room, arguing, stating a point of view, combating some suggestion that underlay the trend of that pitiless wisdom which in the end bore him down with its unanswerable insistence.
During those long hours much was stated by that small, thin voice which was utterly beyond the comprehension of the two listeners; indeed, it is doubtful whether even Challis understood a tithe of the theory that was actually expressed in words.
As for Lewes, though he was at the time non-plussed, quelled, he was in the outcome impressed rather by the marvellous powers of memory exhibited than by the far finer powers shown in the superhuman logic of the synthesis.
One sees that Lewes entered upon the interview with a mind predisposed to criticise, to destroy. There can be no doubt that as he listened his uninformed mind was endeavouring to analyse, to weigh, and to oppose; and this antagonism and his own thoughts continually interposed between him and the thought of the speaker. Lewes’s account of what was spoken on that afternoon is utterly worthless.
Challis’s failure to comprehend was not, at the outset, due to his antagonistic attitude. He began with an earnest wish to understand: he failed only because the thing spoken was beyond the scope of his intellectual powers. But he did, nevertheless, understand the trend of that analysis of progress; he did in some half-realised way apprehend the gist of that terrible deduction of a final adjustment.
He must have apprehended, in part, for he fiercely combated the argument, only to quaver, at last, into a silence which permitted again that trickle of hesitating, pedantic speech, which was yet so overwhelming, so conclusive.
As the afternoon wore on, however, Challis’s attitude must have changed; he must have assumed an armour of mental resistance not unlike the resistance of Lewes. Challis perceived, however dimly, that life would hold no further pleasure for him if he accepted that theory of origin, evolution, and final adjustment; he found in this cosmogony no place for his own idealism; and he feared to be convinced even by that fraction of the whole argument which he could understand.
We see that Challis, with all his apparent devotion to science, was never more than a dilettante. He had another stake in the world which, at the last analysis, he valued more highly than the acquisition of knowledge. Those means of ease, of comfort, of liberty, of opportunity to choose his work among various interests, were the ruling influence of his life. With it all Challis was an idealist, and unpractical. His genial charity, his refinement of mind, his unthinking generosity, indicate the bias of a character which inclined always towards a picturesque optimism. It is not difficult to understand that he dared not allow himself to be convinced by Victor Stott’s appalling synthesis.
At last, when the twilight was deepening into night, the voice ceased, the child’s story had been told, and it had not been understood. The Wonder never again spoke of his theory of life. He realised from that time that no one could comprehend him.
As he rose to go, he asked one question that, simple as was its expression, had a deep and wonderful significance.
“Is there none of my kind?” he said. “Is this,” and he laid a hand on the pile of books before him, “is this all?”
“There is none of your kind,” replied Challis; and the little figure born into a world that could not understand him, that was not ready to receive him, walked to the window and climbed out into the darkness.
(Henry Challis is the only man who could ever have given any account of that extraordinary analysis of life, and he made no effort to recall the fundamental basis of the argument, and so allowed his memory of the essential part to fade. Moreover, he had a marked disinclination to speak of that afternoon or of anything that was said by Victor Stott during those six momentous hours of expression. It is evident that Challis’s attitude to Victor Stott was not unlike the attitude of Captain Wallis to Victor Stott’s father on the occasion of Hampdenshire’s historic match with Surrey. “This man will have to be barred,” Wallis said. “It means the end of cricket.” Challis, in effect, thought that if Victor Stott were encouraged, it would mean the end of research, philosophy, all the mystery, idealism, and joy of life. Once, and once only, did Challis give me any idea of what he had learned during that afternoon’s colloquy, and the substance of what Challis then told me will be found at the end of this volume.)